HM forces & foreign office

Community

The connections you’ll forge

When talking to pupils, parents and staff about what they love most about the School, the answer is usually 'community'. There is a tangible sense of friendliness and unity in a small school where all pupils are known and nurtured.

Location

The place you'll call home

Kingham Hill is beautifully situated in the heart of the Cotswolds, between Oxford, Cheltenham and Stratford-Upon-Avon.

We are surrounded by delightful, rolling countryside and lie just a short walk from Kingham, ‘England’s favourite village’. Chipping Norton and Stow-on-the-Wold - traditional Cotswold market towns - are four and five miles away.

HM forces & foreign office

Kingham Hillians is our alumni organisation, a vibrant community spread throughout the world. Anyone who was a pupil of Kingham Hill School or who taught or worked on the Hill automatically becomes a Hillian when they leave the School.

On Friday 17th May, the School were proud to invite Peter from Centrepoint, the School's charity of the year, in for a special assembly last week where our pupils presented him with a cheque for an impressive £5,627.43.

The 3rd of May saw The Octagon Academic Society hosting a special Friday Chapel, which saw the grand final of this year’s Mastermind. The black chair was back, the glass rose bowl polished and ready for the winner.

The boys in Plymouth House have been keeping a close eye on results from the Touch World Cup, as Mr Marks plays his part for England in the over 35 category of the tournament.

The World Cup brings together the best Touch Rugby players from around the globe to decide who is World Champion and after a highly successful staging in Coffs Harbour, four years ago, the World Cup has moved to South East Asia for the first time. Mr Marks was involved in some early success for England as they narrowly defeated the mighty Fiji in their opening game.

Tuesday 19th March marked the birthday of our School's founder, Charles Edward Baring Young. To celebrate, every year the school walks through the Daylesford Estate to the Daylesford Churchyard for a service of remembrance.

Thursday 7th March marked the 22nd World Book Day, a day organised to encourage children to read and provide them with the opportunity to access a variety of literature. Kingham Hill pupils and staff celebrated the day by dressing up as authors and characters from some of their favourite books.

On Tuesday, Kingham Hill School hosted a day full of Science for a group of 38 local primary school children. The children had the opportunity to experience and get a taste of what is taught at Key Stage 3 in the School's fully equipped Veritas laboratories.

Last month, five Kingham Hill cadets attended a two day Mountain Bike Warrior weekend in North Wales, designed to help them advance their skills and develop their confidence on technically challenging mountain bike trails

This Tuesday saw the biennial review of the Combined Cadet Force here at Kingham Hill. All cadets were on show as the Reviewing Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Cooke, inspected numerous areas of the contingent's activities. For all of us at Kingham Hill, it was a day to be proud of with all pupils at their various ranks giving an excellent account of themselves. The Reviewing Party were particularly well led by our Head of Corps Jamie and many of the guests commented on what good hands they felt they were in with him adding some class to the proceedings.

Thursday evening gave the senior Rugby and Hockey teams a chance to celebrate their respective seasons. These are events which allow the pupils to embrace the social side of their sports as well as reflect on the lessons to learn from the challenges they faced. They are also, crucially, an opportunity for both squads to spend time together for the last time, mark the departure of great servants who are leaving at the end of the year and to take note of the observations their coaches make.

An important aspect of the school's unofficial motto is to 'Serve Well'. As a school we are always looking for opportunities to develop the pupils' appreciation for what they have and to look for ways to serve those around them, whether within the school, local community or even further afield. Over the years we have tried to support different charities with events to raise both funds and awareness to further their work. The school has a charity committee which is made up of pupils and staff who make decisions about who the school will seek to help and what we will do to achieve this. This term, Kingham Hill will be seeking to do this for Centrepoint, which is a charity for homeless young people and this morning's chapel service was very much the launch of this term's work.

Over the Christmas break a number of Kingham Hill pupils embraced the opportunity to develop their skiing skills on the slopes of Obertauern in Austria. This annual event has become a much anticipated part of the annual calendar and, as per usual, the snow did not disappoint. Following a week of constant snowfall our tourists were first onto the slopes which had some of the finest snow which Europe had to offer - even more than the Three Valleys.

This Monday saw the annual Hockey Awards evening which gave a chance for all pupils and staff to look back together on this year's season and take stock of the progress made. It was an evening which gave the school much to be proud of and our special guest was Suzy Petty who is a current Great Britain Hockey play, who has represented this country in the World Championships and Commonwealth Games. Her story was very much down to earth and clearly resonated with pupils own experience of having to work hard to achieve.

Last Monday saw this year's Christmas concert with various school bands performing a number of familiar pieces. Mr Chambers and his team had worked tirelessly and it was wonderful to see what good shape the music at Kingham Hill is in. There were a number of real highlights, one of which was a piece played predominantly by pupils who had only been learning their instruments for one year. What an inspiration they were to those pupils who were starting out on the same road this year.

On the night of Friday 23rd November the Kingham Hill Combined Cadet Force Formal Dinner took place in the Top School Hall. The event allowed our pupils to experience a formal military dinner, enjoying excellent food and good company. The Cadets were privileged to have Colonel Earnshaw join them as their senior guest and speaker for the evening. With good reason, it is one of Mr Seward's favourite evenings of the year.The evening culminated in the award of promotions to CCF cadets and pupils. We are very proud of them all and especially Jamie who was appointed the new Head of Corps. and is pictured at the top of this item alongside Colonel Earnshaw.

On Thursday, Kingham Hill Drama Department had the privilege of hosting a workshop of physical theatre by leading theatre practitioners, Frantic Assembly, in our Drama Studio. This company are World renown for their production of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ and ‘Othello’.

A group of 22 pupils travelled to Holland this week for our Junior Sports Tour. These trips are a vital part of the development of sport at Kingham Hill and this trip gives the younger pupils their first chance to benefit from the experience of travelling to an unfamiliar place and focus on progressing both as individuals and as a team. The experience of Mr Cartwright, Mrs Rigby and Miss Gordon will have proved invaluable in achieving this.

On Thursday 8th November a group of Kingham Hill CCF cadets attended the Service of Prayer and Remembrance at St Margaret's Church, Westminster. It was an honour for the school to be invited to such a special event at the heart of our nation during Remembrance time in this centenary year. The service was attended by several Members of Parliament, Members of the House of Lords and senior officers. Apologies if you cannot see the main photograph please click through the heading to see the full article.

Just before the half term break Kingham Hill's Year 9 pupils set off for the Battlefields of France and Belgium. The trip provided pupils with the opportunity to learn about WWI history in the battlefields where it took place with expert guide Mr Williams, our Head of Languages.

At the end of April a group of 21 junior pupils travelled to Leicester to take part in a training masterclass, Q&A session with a current rugby union top flight player and watch a vital match between the Leicester Tigers and Newcastle Falcons at Welford Road.

On Friday 23 March 2018, a group of 12 cadets and accompanying staff from Kingham Hill School Combined Cadet Force departed for five days of Adventurous Training in Snowdonia, North Wales. The aim of the camp was to practice cadets in their training to date and to complete a variety of adventurous activities to enhance individuals' confidence in their own abilities, to aid personal development and to improve unit cohesion.

This week, pupils took to the stage during their outstanding performance of Oliver! Based upon the novel "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens and featuring musical numbers such as "Food, Glorious Food", "Consider Yourself" and "I'd Do Anything" - the talented cast, band and crew members created a wonderful experience for the audience during the sell out shows.

Government and Politics pupils had an early start on Monday morning when Mr Ferrero's Sixth Form class travelled to London where they met local MP, Mr Robert Courts (Witney and West Oxfordshire) during a visit to Parliament.

Despite the snow last week, on Sunday, pupils were able to venture off-site for their visit to Southampton Football Club where they met with Hillian, David Thomas (1976-1981 – Clyde and Bradford) who is now the Commercial Director for the Club

This week, Kingham Hill School hosted an exciting and inspiring Science Day for a group of 54 local primary school children. They had an incredible time in our Veritas laboratories, spending time with our staff and Sixth Form volunteers and having fun with science.

Our Year 11 pupils have received their GCSE examination paper and have started to research their ideas. To help them get started, the Art Department spent a day visiting some of the London Galleries to find some inspiration.

Today our Head Boy, Tom, delivered an incredible lecture to the School in our morning Chapel assembly. This was part of his EPQ and he demonstrated an enormous amount of hard work which was very impressive.

Kingham Hill alumnus Professor Joss Bland-Hawthorn, who attended the school from 1970 – 1977, has begun a three month long Visiting Miller Professorship at the prestigious University of California Berkeley.

We were excited to welcome new additions to the school this week. Three of our goats that are looked after by our farm club successfully delivered three sets of twins and one of the goats who is a first time mother also gave birth to a lovely little kid.

With season 2 of The Crown, Netflix’s Golden Globe winning drama released today, Kingham Hill School pupils have been getting excited to see themselves in one of the biggest television shows as they make their onscreen debuts.

It was a day of success at Kingham Hill School as Year 13 pupils celebrated receiving their A level results. The School’s Sixth Formers arrived this morning both excited and nervous to learn the outcome of their examinations. They were not disappointed as they achieved incredible results - the best the school has seen to date.

There were plenty of happy reactions as Kingham Hill School pupils collected their GCSE results this morning. Building on the record A level results of last week the GCSE pupils made it a double celebration as they achieved a school record for the second year running.

To officially draw the 2016/17 school year to a close we held our annual Speech Day celebrations on Saturday 1st July. The school grounds, pupils and guests were bathed in glorious sunshine, adding to the joyful atmosphere.

Pupils at the Hill have been celebrating a very successful term of fundraising after collecting over £6,000 for TeamHelps, a charity that works to improve education, medical care and living conditions for families in Guatemala.

Celebrated children’s author, Tanya Landman wowed our Year 8 pupils as she visited ahead of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival. Joining our pupils in the school library Tanya began her talk with recounting some hilarious tales from her childhood and school, notably describing her ambitions to be an astronaut, ballerina and monkey.